Winter News

We’re sometimes told that fear is about control. The things that you can’t control can be the most fearful. If that is true then for people who’ve experienced migraines, it might help to explain why they can be fearsome. It’s not just the pain and nausea that a migraine can bring, it’s also the unpredictable onset – the inability to control when it will appear – that can be scary and can kick your confidence.

Most people who get migraines will also be familiar with the early onset symptom called ‘Aura’. This is a jagged light-and-colour special effect feature that seeds itself in your peripheral vision and slowly grows to dominate it. It strikes me that, if the aura weren’t the fearful harbinger of a migraine, and if it were somehow possible to view it remotely and impassively, as silly as it sounds an aura could actually be beautiful. The scintillating light effects and the various turns of colour could have a raw psychedelic aesthetic quality.

I decided in my recent painting ‘Aura’ to see if it were possible to capture this – to view the aesthetic aspect of someone’s aura onset. And I wondered if, in some small way, capturing the beauty of such a thing might also help to tame the beast. To regain a little control perhaps.